His throat worked as he searched for the right words to break her heart.
“I should have told you earlier. I just didn’t know how. I didn’t want to say anything. But I’ve … I’ve been seeing someone else, Harper.”
If he’d slapped her it wouldn’t have hurt more. Harper felt almost breathless from it.
She stared at him in disbelief. Waiting for more. Waiting for the next blow.
But he just sat there. Watching her. Waiting for her to react.
I’m so stupid, she thought.
All this time—an entire year—she’d waited for him. She’d stayed alone in this house night after night thinking, somewhere in the back of her mind, that they would find a way. That the things they’d been through together mattered.
Surely, nobody could go through what they’d endured, and then just walk away from it all.
She’d believed that so fundamentally it had never occurred to her to date someone else. Never occurred to her that whether or not they got back together might not be her decision.
And all that time he’d been seeing someone else. Getting over her. Moving on.
“Get out,” she said, the words low and venomous and filled with pain.
Then she turned on her heel and left the room.
The problem with small apartments is there’s nowhere to hide. She wasn’t about to lock herself in the bathroom. This was her home.
Instead, she went to the kitchen and began making coffee. Measuring the grounds, filling the jug with water. She didn’t know why she was doing it—she didn’t want coffee. She didn’t want anything. But she kept going, her movements deliberate and careful, her hands steady.
She felt numb.
Not yet, her subconscious was telling her. You’ll feel it later. But not yet.
When Luke walked in, he’d put on his jeans. His shirt hung loose, unbuttoned. He’d splashed water on his face. Some had gotten on his collar, and Harper found herself focusing on that detail—the circular spots of dampness.
It was easier than looking at his beautiful, lost face.
“How long?” she heard herself ask.
“A few months.”
He stayed by the door. His voice was steady but every muscle in his body was taut and tense.
A few months. Long enough.
“Why did you come here tonight?” Her voice was leaden. She didn’t want to know. But she had to know.
“I was worried about you. And then…” He paused, a muscle in his jaw working. “I wasn’t lying. I do miss you.”
Harper ignored that completely.
“Does she know you’re here?”
He gave her a tortured look.
“No,” he said. “Look, I didn’t come over here tonight expecting to do this.”
“Do what?” She met his gaze. “Cheat?” He flinched, but she didn’t back down. “That wasn’t what you wanted when you came here tonight? To have sex with me and see if you still had feelings for me? Just to check? ‘One last time with Harper in case there’s something I missed’?”
“That’s not it,” he insisted. “It’s not that simple.”
“Oh, it’s very simple, Luke.” She shoved the coffeemaker away. “You’re with someone else now. I’m in your past. And then we ran into each other at that stupid crime scene and you thought, ‘Oh look. There’s Harper. I’ve been ignoring her for a year but maybe I still care. Let’s check.’”
A tear ran down her cheek, and she noted its presence with surprise, because she couldn’t fully feel the pain. But it was coming.
“So here you are, checking.” She took a step toward him. “What did you feel, Luke? Do you care? Because, I’ll share a little secret with you—I was in love with you.” She threw the words at him hard, watching them hit. “I waited for you. And you did this.”
She drew a ragged breath, hands clenching.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you…” he began.
“Well you did.” Her voice rose. “You did.”
She almost couldn’t speak now; her throat was closing on her words.
“A year ago you left me because you thought I betrayed you.” She made herself meet his eyes. “Now we’re even. And I want you out of my house.”
He stood in the kitchen doorway for a long time, looking at her, hands loose at his sides. She couldn’t bear to see him anymore. She spun around, turning her back to him.
“I do care, Harper,” he said, quietly. “That’s the problem.”
“Please go.”
She wouldn’t look up, but she could sense him hesitating. Hear his breathing as he decided.
“I’m sorry,” he said, very softly. “I truly am.”
She stood in the glow of her kitchen light, holding her breath, listening to his footsteps cross the living room.
In the deep quiet, she heard every movement. The clicking of the locks turning. The beep of the alarm. The faint creak as the front door opened.
The air moving as it closed with a final thud she felt in her heart.
Still she stood, unwavering, until the rumble of a car engine broke the quiet of the night.
Only then did she take a gasping breath and loosen her grip on the counter.
Slowly, silently, she slid down to the floor and buried her face against her knees.
24
The next day, Harper thought about canceling her interview with Wilson Shepherd and staying home. She was in no fit state to work. She hadn’t slept after Luke left. She was running on air.
In the end, though, she knew that wasn’t possible.
Besides, she couldn’t bear a day alone with her thoughts.
Her mind circled last night’s activities like a predator around a fresh carcass.
She kept thinking how happy she’d been. And then hearing him say, “I’ve been seeing someone else.” Imagining her own stricken expression.
Each time it was worse. More mortifying.
How could she have been so naive as to think he wouldn’t be dating? He was good-looking, and a cop. He was only twenty-eight. There were so many women out there who would kill to have a hot young detective of their very own.
The more she thought about it, the more it all made sense. The way he’d looked at her when she told him there’d been no one since him—the surprise. And worse—the pity.
Of course he felt sorry for her. Who sits around for an entire year waiting for a man she’d dated for a few weeks to come back to her?
It was pitiful, actually. She was pitiful.
She hated being pitiful.
For hours, she’d sat in the kitchen, as Zuzu slept on the chair across from her, watching the sun rise over the old rooftops, nursing her wounds as the coffee she’d made when he was still there grew cold and stale.
Sometime around eight that morning, she realized that if she sat there long enough, she might actually go crazy. So, she got up and started moving.
She wasn’t scheduled to interview Shepherd until ten o’clock. But, there were better things she could be doing than sitting in her house. God knew Luke wouldn’t be sitting at home with a cat. He’d be with his new girlfriend, coming up with creative excuses about where he’d been the night before.
She dressed quickly, barely noticing what she put on. Then she grabbed her scanner and notebooks, and headed out.
The second she entered the newsroom, DJ waved her over urgently.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Anderson,” he hissed, jutting a finger toward the editor’s office, across the room. “Just came in. He and Dells are throwing down.”
Only then did Harper hear the muffled shouting. Male voices, both talking at the same time.
Tilting her head to one side, she tried to make out what they were saying.
“Anderson father or son?” she asked.
The answer came from behind her. “It’s Daddy Anderson.”
Harper turned to find Ed Lasterson, the newspaper’s court reporter, leaning forward as he, too, tried to
listen.
He was in his forties, with straight black hair, and a tall, angular build that somehow made all his suits look like they were intended to fit someone else entirely. He was quiet and ordinarily kept to himself.
Harper rated him as a writer, although they didn’t know each other well. He and his wife had young twins, and he was out of the office most days by 5:30 on the dot.
“Did you hear what happened?” she asked, moving closer to his desk.
“Everyone within five counties must have heard.” He pointed at the newsroom door. “About five minutes ago, Anderson comes busting in here with the security guard on his heels, telling everyone he’ll talk to Dells or sue this place to the ground. Dells comes out of his office and tries to calm him down but Anderson says, ‘You went after my son. I’ll ruin you for this, you lying son of a bitch.’”
Harper winced. “Aren’t the two of them supposed to be friends?”
Across the room, the voices from the glass office crescendoed.
“I don’t have to listen to a goddamn thing you say!” a man shouted.
“That friendship appears to be getting shorter by the minute,” DJ observed.
They stood in a line, staring across the newsroom toward the editor’s office.
Harper thought of Dells, leaning over her shoulder, carefully deleting anything Anderson might sue over.
“He didn’t trust him,” she said, mostly to herself. “I think he knew this would happen.”
Ed gave her a curious look, but before he could ask what she meant, the editor’s office door flew open with such force, it crashed into the wall behind it, sending a crack down the glass.
The newsroom fell silent.
A red-faced, stocky man with thick gray hair burst out, the jacket of his tailored suit swinging.
Dells was right behind him. His jaw was set, and his blue eyes were chips of ice. But he kept his voice under control.
“For God’s sake, Randall,” he said reasonably. “Calm down and talk this over.”
“I’ll calm down when you’re fired.” Anderson shoved his finger in his face. “You retract that story or I’ll bring you down myself.”
“If you had a case,” Dells told him, “you’d have filed a lawsuit already.”
“You think so?” The other man glared. “You always did underestimate me, Paul.”
With that, he stormed across the room, knocking papers off Baxter’s desk as he passed.
Dells didn’t follow him. He stood still in the entrance to his office—shoulders high and fists tight—as if he was preparing to protect it from invaders, as Anderson thundered down the steps.
For a moment, Dells stood where he was, looking at the newsroom door. Then he turned to scan the room.
Spotting Harper, he motioned for her to follow, and strode back into his office.
She could feel the other reporters watching as she hurried across the newsroom, which felt hushed in the aftermath of the argument.
As she passed Baxter’s desk, Harper noticed it was empty; her computer screen was blank.
When she reached his office, Dells stood with his back to her, looking out the window at the blue ribbon of river, shining in the morning sun.
“Close the door, please.”
Harper did as he asked.
Crossing to the modern glass desk, he lowered himself into his chair.
Harper didn’t wait for him to talk.
“How bad is it?” she asked, sitting across from him.
“Well, it’s not great.” He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You saw him. He wants my head on a plate.”
“Does he have a case?” she asked.
He glanced up at her. “The story is solid. Don’t worry about that.”
She leaned back against the leather and chrome of her chair. “So we’re safe.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He set the glasses down, and they clinked against the glass. “Anderson thinks this is personal, so he’ll have his staff going through all our articles, looking for anything he can use to get at us. Any mistake we’ve made in the last year, no matter how small, he’ll find it.”
He shot her a rueful look. “He’s a vindictive son of a bitch. And he’s a very good lawyer.”
“Why are you his friend?” she asked, wondering as she said it whether the lack of sleep was affecting her judgment.
His eyebrows rose, but he answered the question.
“He’s useful,” he said simply. “Sometimes it’s valuable to have useful associates.”
He looked nearly as tired as she felt. Without glasses, his eyes were quite striking. Pale blue, and clear as lake water.
“You knew, didn’t you?” she said. “You knew he’d do something like this.”
“I had an idea he wouldn’t be thrilled.”
A copy of the day’s newspaper lay on his desk, and he turned it over. Peyton Anderson’s smooth face looked up at them beneath the damning headline they’d worked on so carefully last night.
“This is his son we’re talking about. I guessed he’d come out swinging today.” He glanced at the damaged glass wall. “I didn’t think he’d do it in my office, though.”
Harper had worked with Dells since she started at the newspaper, and he’d never been as open as he’d been lately. There’d always been a bluntness to his approach to reporters, but he’d never been this forthcoming.
Seeing that he was in the mood for honesty, she decided to ask more.
“He can’t really bring the paper down, can he?” she asked. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“We haven’t. But, he can make life very difficult for us,” he said. “That’s why I think we need to dig further into this story. Start with the other suspects. The boyfriend and the bar owner—let’s find out more about them. We have to prove we’re being fair.” He glanced at his watch. “What about that interview—isn’t it this morning?”
“I’m meeting him at ten,” Harper told him.
“Good. And the bar owner?”
She held up her hands. “I’m trying. He’s not answering his phone.”
“Track him down,” he ordered. “This is a small town. Everyone can be found.”
“I’ll get him.” She paused before asking, “What about the Anderson kid? Should we back off?”
Dells didn’t answer right away. He picked up a heavy black pen from the top of his desk and studied it.
When he looked up, his expression was harder than she’d ever seen it.
“I want you to find out everything you can about Peyton Anderson. We know he has issues with women. Let’s find the rest. Has he ever been arrested for hitting a woman? Or anything else? If he’s had so much as a speeding ticket I want to know about it.”
Harper couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t backing down. He was putting it all on the line.
“I’ll find out all I can,” she told him. “Also, we know of three women he’s harassed—why don’t I talk to the two who are still alive?”
He gave her an approving look. “Do it. And, remind me. Why don’t the police consider him a suspect?”
“All anyone will say is that he has a good alibi,” she said.
“I want to know what that alibi is,” he told her, firmly. “Today.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She wondered fleetingly what her editor would think if he knew she’d just had sex with, and been dumped for a second time by, a detective working on this case. One who knew everything.
“Let me know if I can do anything to help,” he said. “And I mean that. This is the biggest story you’ve ever worked on, as far as I’m concerned. I expect to be part of every step of it from here on out.”
Taking this as an indication the discussion was over, Harper stood and headed for the door.
Dells called her back.
“Harper.”
She turned to find him watching her with a look of ruthless determination.
“Let’s do this right,
” he said. “The Anderson family is gunning for us. Don’t give them an easy target.”
25
Wilson Shepherd lived in Garden City—a workaday Savannah suburb filled with sprawling half-acre plots with small, weathered houses.
Shepherd’s house was just as Jerrod Scott had described, a small blue one-story, with peeling paint and a crooked mailbox out front that looked like someone had backed into it.
When Harper parked at the curb, the late-morning air was warm and thick as soup. Some kids were playing football down the road, shouting orders to one another and cheering. Otherwise, it was quiet.
The walkway to the house was cracked but the lawn was neatly trimmed.
When she rang the bell, the door opened so quickly she took a step back in surprise.
Shepherd was about five foot ten, with light brown skin and a round face. He wore a blue Nike T-shirt with loose khaki shorts.
He looked so different from the man she’d seen arrested and released from jail last week, he might have been his brother.
His eyes were clear and focused. He looked drawn but not unstable as he studied her with some suspicion.
“Wilson, I’m Harper McClain,” she said, when he didn’t speak. “Jerrod Scott told me you were willing to talk.”
He didn’t move or speak for so long, she began to fear he might send her away.
Then, with clear reluctance, he opened the door wider.
“I guess you better come in.”
Inside, the house was much like the outside—a bit shabby, in need of a lick of paint, but very clean. The faded linoleum floors shone in the entrance hall. Not a speck of dust besmirched the coffee table in the living room he led her into.
The OCD part of Harper recognized a fellow neat freak.
They sat across from each other on black, fake-leather sofas.
Wilson seemed anxious, his hands knotted above his knees.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, hopefully. “Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” She wanted him looking at her, not doing something to distract himself. She needed to assess him. “I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. I know this must be difficult. I’m sure Mr. Scott told you why I’m here. I need to talk to you about Naomi.”
A Beautiful Corpse--A Harper McClain Mystery Page 19
